Herut

Herut was the most powerful right-wing nationalist party in Israel from 1948 until it merged into Likud in 1988. The party was founded as the political wing of the Irgun paramilitary, and it took credit for driving the British out of Mandatory Palestine. During the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Herut objected to any negotiations with the Arab states until the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were annexed by Israel, but Menachem Begin moderated the party's economic stance, ensuring that it was not anti-socialist by opposing monopolies and trusts and supporting the nationalization of all public works and basic utilities. The Israeli Labor Party claimed that Herut was akin to Nazi and fascist parties, with intellectuals such as Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt being just two of twenty intellectuals to publicly agree with this statement in an open letter to the New York Times in 1948. The party merged into the larger conservative party, Likud, in 1948.